


Stutter

by writergirl8



Series: Stydia-fanfiction prompts [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7642870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/pseuds/writergirl8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s kind of ridiculous, how they had just missed each other. Stiles gave up on her the moment she had fully given into her feelings for him. It had been horrifying to know that she had let herself fall believing that there was someone to catch her, but really there hadn’t been. Lydia has been suffering the injuries ever since– bandaging stinging scrapes on her arms and feeling perpetually out of breath, like she’s landing on the ground, taking a blow to the chest, over and over and over again. </p><p>Being in love is a constant. It is sewn onto her body like it is a shadow, padding softly after her wherever she goes. She’s tried to rip it off, but then she sees Stiles joking around with Scott or teasing Kira or solving puzzles over Skype– she isn’t allowed in his bedroom anymore– and it clings to her, wrapping its knobby hands around her shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stutter

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt I got last summer from stydia-fanfiction and I was like 'eh let's post it, life's short.' 
> 
> Prompt: Lydia confesses her feeling to Stiles, but he get mad and says she can’t love him because he’s with Malia and they start yelling at each other and then Lydia says “you don’t know how many times i’ve fallen in love with you” and she tells him about each time she fell more and more in love with him

There’s a small pebble stuttering across the pavement. It clicks and clack against the street until it finally rolls into the gutter, vanishing out of Lydia’s sight line. When Stiles had kicked it, it had been the first sound he’d made since he had dutifully offered to walk her home. Without waiting for her agreement, he had ducked his head and followed her out of Derek’s loft, hands shoved into his pockets, mouth zipped shut. Lydia doesn’t think she’s ever spent this much time with a silent Stiles. She also doesn’t think anyone has ever gone so long without looking at her. It’s completely unnerving to see the way she is methodically being avoided. Makes her want to shrink into herself, just to escape Stiles’ distance.   
  
But she’s never wanted that. Never wanted to be smaller. Jackson used to make her so tiny, and Peter reduced her to a grain of sand, but Scott and Allison put faith into her. Brought her back. Made her big again. And Stiles had done that too, which is why it’s so ironic that he has reduced her, once more, to a tiny version of herself.   
  
Because, the truth is, Lydia doesn’t usually spend this much time without talking either. She does it because she’s following his lead. Because Stiles had been the one to decide that he was going to distance himself from her when he began dating Malia, just as Lydia had finally realized the fact that she was in love with him.   
  
It’s kind of ridiculous, how they had _just_ missed each other. Stiles gave up on her the moment she had fully given into her feelings for him. It had been horrifying to know that she had let herself fall believing that there was someone to catch her, but really there hadn’t been. Lydia has been suffering the injuries ever since– bandaging stinging scrapes on her arms and feeling perpetually out of breath, like she’s landing on the ground, taking a blow to the chest, over and over and over again.   
  
Being in love is a constant. It is sewn onto her body like it is a shadow, padding softly after her wherever she goes. She’s tried to rip it off, but then she sees Stiles joking around with Scott or teasing Kira or solving puzzles over Skype– she isn’t allowed in his bedroom anymore– and it clings to her, wrapping its knobby hands around her shoulders.   
  
Perhaps it is the silence that leads to Lydia’s bravery. Stiles has his hands tucked into his purple hoodie and is hunting around for another pebble to kick, and Lydia wants to know if she knows why he’s avoiding her. She wants to know if she’s figured it out. Because if he doesn’t care, they would be talking, wouldn’t they? She’s not an idiot. She knows guilt when she sees it. And he seems guilty just from being around her.   
  
“Hey,” she says, and Stiles physically startles, his shoulders shooting up to his ears as his head flies up to look at Lydia. “You… you like facts, don’t you?”  
  
He frowns.  
  
“As opposed to fiction? I gotta say, in the current state of the universe, I’m not sure there’s a line between those things anymore.”  
  
Well. She’ll address that later.  
  
“No, not as opposed to fiction,” Lydia says. “I mean… as opposed to not having facts. Information. Bits and pieces that help you see the whole picture. You like that stuff, right?”  
  
“Do you know something I don’t know?”   
  
She nods.   
  
“I do,” she says simply. They’re nearing her house; can see the lights in the distance. She knows that she has a mom and a dog waiting for her, both of whom love her sincerely and would be happy to spend more time with her than Stiles. And yet all she wants to do is turn to him and demand that he go back to being the boy who used to breathe her in; make her feel special and worthy and important. She misses that boy so dearly. Wants him so badly that she’s almost willing to sacrifice her dignity to get him back.   
  
“Well,” he says impatiently. (She’s used to it. He’s always impatient with her these days.) “What is it?”  
  
Lydia steps onto her front porch, the height of the step bringing her frame just slightly closer to his, so that they are almost– but not quite– nose to nose. She stares across at him, dithering. When her eyes catch the barrier in his, the one that is locking her out, she makes her choice.   
  
“I love you,” she says promptly. “And I thought you should know that so you could play the game fairly. Make the calls that are best for you.”  
  
He stares. Frowns. Licks his bottom lip. Opens his mouth and closes it and Lydia is going insane watching this. Waiting for it.   
  
“Best for you,” he whispers.   
  
“What?”   
  
“You mean best for you.”  
  
Lydia’s heart seems to slam up against her chest, halting in its rhythmic beating.   
  
“What?”   
  
“What the hell is wrong with you, Lydia?”   
  
“What the fuck, Stiles?”   
  
The porch light provides the only illumination of Stiles’ face, but Lydia can see the panic in his eyes. He looks like an animal preparing to run.   
  
“You can’t just… you can’t just tell me that you fucking love me after years and years of me wanting you so bad and you never reciprocating. You can’t just do that.”  
  
“Yes I can,” she says hotly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I just did.”  
  
She is Lydia fucking Martin. She can whatever the hell she wants. And right now, what she wants is to scream at Stiles. This isn’t a banshee scream, or a terrified scream. This an angry scream, and it is all Lydia Martin. No supernatural forces. No real danger. Just a teenaged girl who used to get everything that she wanted.   
  
Clearly, not anymore.   
  
“No,” he says. “You didn’t. You got pissed off that I was dating somebody who wasn’t you and you decided to stake your claim or whatever.”  
  
“This isn’t about Malia!” Lydia cries out indignantly. “This is about you and me, you asshole.”   
  
“There’s no such thing as you and me and there never has been,” Stiles says. “What I felt for you was infatuation, not love.”  
  
“Bullshit,” she says, clearly. “God, I can’t believe what bullshit that is.”  
  
“It’s not-”  
  
“What are you protecting yourself from, huh?” Lydia asks. “Is it me? Because I’m pretty sure I’m the one who you’re fucking over. You don’t get to be the victim here. I’m the one with the broken heart.”  
  
“I spent every day since the eighth day of third grade with a broken heart, so if that’s the case then… then good.”   
  
“You can’t use that!” Lydia screams, balling her hands into fists. “It doesn’t count. That wasn’t real. It got real later. That’s when it counted, and I wasn’t nearly as far behind you as you may have thought. I just had to figure it out.”  
  
“There was nothing to figure out,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re just mad because I’m not dedicating every moment of my life to you.”  
  
“I’m not mad about that,” Lydia says, exasperated. “I’m mad that you stopped waiting for me, Stiles.”   
  
He stutters only for a second.   
  
“Why now? Why this year, Lydia?”  
  
“I figured it out before then, but it was already too late-”  
  
“Sure,” he scoffs.  
  
“-and you were already ignoring me.” When he looks surprised, she has to laugh. “What? You know I’m not stupid. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”  
  
“I didn’t think you were paying attention,” he says bitingly. “You never have before.”   
  
“What is wrong with you? Seriously, tell me, because I can’t fathom you have an excuse for the worst reaction in the history of humankind.”   
  
“Are you really so used to getting what you want that you have to resort to lies to break apart the only real romantic relationship I’ve ever had?”  
  
Lydia’s mouth drops open. She stares at him.   
  
“You… you know that’s not true.” He knows who she is. He’s always known. It’s one of the things she’s spent so much time loving him for.   
  
But Stiles just shrugs uncomfortably, smashing Lydia’s heart with the upwards movement of his shoulders.   
  
“Oh,” she says, backing up another step. “Okay.” He stares at her as she walks until her back is pressed against the door, hand desperately searching for the knob so that he won’t have to see her crying. “Forget it, then,” Lydia whispers before slipping through the door and slamming it closed behind herself.   
  
There’s only one moment of white, hot, searing anger before the regret surges in.   
  
Because no. Just… no. He knows her. She knows that he knows her.  
  
Without thinking, Lydia reaches for the knob.   
  
Stiles is still standing there, his face ghostly pale as he stares blankly at her front door. When she appears around it, face contorting with fury, a look of shock crosses his face.   
  
“Lydia-” he says warningly, but she puts a finger up.   
  
“I do love you,” she insists. “I do.” Stiles shakes his head.   
  
“No. You never will.”  
  
“You don’t know… you don’t even know how many times I’ve fallen in love with you. I don’t just love you, Stiles. I’ve loved you over and over again.”   
  
He remains tight-lipped.   
  
“I loved you when you told me to get off my cute ass and dance with you. I wasn’t in love with you yet, but I loved your sense of humor, and your spirit, and the way your eyes drooped when you looked at me. Nobody had ever looked at me like that. Not even Jackson. You made me realize what it was like to actually feel genuinely beautiful, not just someone who was used for fucking.”  
  
She closes the door behind herself, moving back into the muggy evening air. It causes her shirt to cling to her body, but she ignores this, wrapping her arms around her waist to protect herself.   
  
“I loved you when you told me I looked beautiful when I cry, because I’m not perfect, and you saw that, and you were okay with that. My face gets all red and screwed up and I feel so vulnerable, but you didn’t make me feel that way at all. You didn’t even make me feel imperfect. You just looked at me like I was a human being, and you were okay with that. It made me look at myself like that, too.”  
  
He wrinkles his nose, shaking his head.   
  
“No,” he says quietly, but there’s so much less fight in it. She moves closer.   
  
“I started to love you when we became friends, and you walked me home to make sure I was okay, and you told me to always go to you when there was a dead body. Talking to you, figuring things out… it made me feel so alive, Stiles. My heart would speed up and I’d watch you tapping your pen against your lower lip and watch your eyes squint at whatever you were reading and it was this out of body experience, watching us figure it out together.   
  
“I began to realize that I loved you when you and Scott almost died. You made that speech, and this ache began to spread across my chest and I wanted you to love me as much as much as you could possibly manage, with all of that love for Scott and your dad and Mrs. McCall crammed into your heart. And then the fire was rolling towards you and Scott and I almost lost you before I got you and my heart leaped into my throat and I realized… I realized that I would rather risk myself than helplessly sit back and watch you die. You were important enough.”   
  
His breath hitches.   
  
“From then on, you were suddenly just… this presence in my life. In my chest. I didn’t understand it, misread it for friendship… no, I didn’t misread it. It was friendship. You crouched in front of me, telling me that you believed in me. Wrapping that red string around your finger. You getting me out of that trap, and despite the fact that it could have hurt me, I felt safe because you were the one trying to get me out of it. You, always holding me when I needed to be held. That was friendship, all of it, but it was also falling in love. They were happening simultaneously, weaving in and out of each other until they were all tangled up in each other.”   
  
“Lydia-”  
  
If he thinks she’s done, he’s crazy.   
  
“When I kissed you… I’ve never felt like that, Stiles. I’ve kissed, I’ve had sex, but none of that felt like one, single kiss with you. The peace and calm and rightness of it. That was the moment that I realized I was falling for you. It was more than the crush I had been repressing, it was more than friendship. You were this balm for my anxiety. You were my default setting. I wanted to kiss you as many times as possible. And I kept building myself up to tell you, but I also wanted to have it quietly for a while. Have it to myself. Know that I had these feelings inside of me and just keep them safe for a while. I thought I had time. Didn’t know that things with you were going to get so fucked up.  
  
“And then the nogitsune was torturing me, and I had to look at him and see your face, and it was terrifying. I was so scared that being in love with you would make me weak for him. I was so scared that I would get you back and hold his abuse against you. I was trying not to look at him and see you, because you would never do that to me… and then I got you back, I got you back and it was like I could finally breathe in again. I couldn’t stop touching you, didn’t want you to get away from me, and I fell in love with you again in that moment. Just… all over again. Right in time for you to get together with Malia. But I didn’t stop falling, even when you stopped helping me figure myself out. I fell in love with you again when you stayed with me at the jeep instead of running after her. When you helped me figure out my own grandmother, which I should have been able to do myself, but I needed you. I fell in love with you again when you stroked my face after Meredith screamed and when you held me after she died, like it was so natural and effortless even after how far apart we’ve been. I kept falling in love with you when you were calm about that needle approaching your neck but you screamed as soon as it went near mine. And that’s how we got right here.”  
  
“Lydia, let me-”  
  
“No,” she says stubbornly. “Hang on. Just… I need you to know that it’s not just the big things I love about you. I also love stuff that’s going to be there even when we aren’t fighting in a war every day of our lives. I love the way you use your hands when you talk, and the way you pay attention to every detail. I love the way you enunciate your sentences, and the way you always manage to make me laugh at your sex jokes even when they’re crass. I love seeing myself reflected in your eyes and seeing someone who is worth so much more than her body has to offer. I love your voice, and your arms, and your moles, and when you look at me like I’m slightly insane, like you’re doing right now. I fall in love with you every time you stick a marker in your mouth or put yourself in front of a metaphorical bullet for the three people in this world that you care about. I love-”  
  
“Four,” comes a hoarse voice, and Lydia pauses for the first time.   
  
“What?”  
  
“I love four people,” Stiles says, voice stilted, like he’s drunk. “Scott,” he says, ticking it off on his pinky finger. “My dad. Mrs. McCall. And… you. Lydia Martin. You.” He unfurls his index finger when he says her name, tapping it with his other index finger, and without thinking, Lydia grabs onto it, clutching it in her fist. “I love you too, Lydia.”   
  
When he kisses her, she knows he believes her. She believes him, too.


End file.
